According to this article, essentially copied from the AP, Adnan Oktar, who writes as Harun Yahya, has been convicted of fraud. His extensive organization has the goal to persuade the world (or at least the schools therein) of the Truth of Young Earth Creationism, as revealed in the Bible. In his case, he began by defending Islam against that Christian Evolution Conspiracy. But he also publishes books for the YEC Christian market in which he substitutes the return of Jesus for the coming of Mahdi.

I’ve read that he does produce beautiful books in support of his ideas. I expect him to get out on appeal of his apparently politically motivated incarceration. Then he and his followers around the world will continue to produce high class anti-science textbooks the like of which the Discovery Institute only wishes they could produce.

Summary: An eviscerating critique of how the Republican party has won elections by obscuring actual issues with phony controversies, aided and abetted by a shallow and insipid media. At times Greenwald’s denunciations are repetitive, but he provides more than enough infuriating examples to amply justify his evident anger.

Glenn Greenwald’s third book, Great American Hypocrites, is an expose of the invented controversies and character-based myths that Republicans use to win elections. Even though public opinion polls show that Americans consistently favor the Democratic party’s position on all or nearly all issues, the Republicans have been winning elections for the past twenty years through ad hominem attacks and the creation of a political mythology - portraying themselves as strong, rugged, manly, salt-of-the-earth regular joes, while their Democratic opponents are demonized as weirdos, elitists and effete freaks. In this endeavor, they have been assisted by the media, which has largely abandoned its duty to inform the public in favor of obsessing over phony, invented non-stories and irrelevant trivialities. (Does Michael Dukakis look silly in a helmet? Did Al Gore claim to have invented the Internet? Does John Kerry like windsurfing? Is Barack Obama a secret Muslim who refuses to wear a flag pin?) As Greenwald shows, not only do these character myths obscure the real issues that matter to Americans’ lives, in most cases they are the polar opposite of the truth.

Greenwald’s paradigmatic example of a Great American Hypocrite is John Wayne. Famed as the all-American actor, the swaggering cowboy whose steel and grit is often invoked by Republican politicians, Wayne’s personal life tells a different story. When his fellow Hollywood stars such as Clark Gable and Henry Fonda volunteered to fight in World War II, Wayne squirmed out of the draft and stayed home (and largely built his career on the movies he made in the absence of competition). To make up for that cowardice, he spent the rest of his life advocating jingoistic right-wing politics - supporting McCarthyite policies, championing the Vietnam War, and loudly attacking anyone who opposed these things as cowards and subversives. He also adopted the stance of a right-wing moralizer, denouncing films that he thought undermined traditional values. Meanwhile, Wayne himself had three marriages, all of which were plagued by adultery and allegations of spousal violence; in both of his two subsequent marriages, he married his mistress almost immediately after divorcing his then-wife.

The second chapter of the book targets the press, which Greenwald labels “vapid [and] easily manipulated”. He outlines the tactics by which right wing character assassination is amplified by the media: sleazy right-wing tabloids, most notably the Drudge Report, publish rumor and innuendo which is then loyally picked up and regurgitated by more mainstream press outlets. Most media outlets, of course, proclaim themselves as above this sort of thing, but they claim they have to report on it, because that’s what “the public” (by which they mean themselves) wants to know about. The press has become obsessed with these petty manufactured scandals to the extent of almost completely pushing out coverage of actual issues - to the extent that, in 2006, more people knew about John Edwards’ haircut than knew Saddam Hussein was not responsible for 9/11.

The next three chapters concern the media narratives pushed by the Great American Hypocrites. First and foremost is the way Republicans depict themselves as tough, resolute warriors, while casting aspersions on the courage and patriotism of their opponents. If you’re like me, you’ll find this chapter the most infuriating of the book - because, as Greenwald chronicles again and again, conservatives who pulled out all the stops to avoid military service when they had the chance spent much of their subsequent political careers dragging their Democratic opponents - who often did serve honorably - through the mud.

As but one example, conservatives cheered when the U.S. military named an aircraft carrier after Ronald Reagan, but mocked and taunted when a submarine was named after Jimmy Carter. This, despite the fact that Reagan was a Hollywood actor who never served in the military in his life, while Carter is an actual veteran who served with distinction on a real nuclear submarine. Similar examples are easy to come by: the vicious demonization of Senator George McGovern, an Air Force veteran who flew 35 combat missions and won the Distinguished Flying Cross, as weak and lacking in courage. Another is the smears against John Kerry, who volunteered for some of the most dangerous duty in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, a truly incredible array of right-wing idols and conservative pundits - such as George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Ronald Reagan, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rush Limbaugh, Joe Lieberman, Bill Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and many more - all avoided military service when they had the opportunity. Today, these right-wing warriors sit comfortably at home in cushy jobs and proclaim their own courage because they are willing to send other people into combat. They view war as an exciting spectacle, like a video game, one that gives them opportunity to brag about their masculinity. As Greenwald notes, it’s the ability to playact as a tough guy, rather than actual evidence of toughness, that the Republicans and the media are obsessed with.

Next up is the Republicans’ depiction of themselves as wholesome, moral Christian family men. This is an especially laughable claim in light of the adulterous relationships, broken marriages, drug-abuse and prostitution allegations, and other scandals that typify the leaders of the conservative movement: Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Rudy Giuliani, Dan Burton, Henry Hyde, Mark Foley, David Vitter, Ted Haggard, and others. As one example, Greenwald quotes former House Speaker Newt Gingrich blasting current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “San Francisco left-wing values”. By way of illustration, Pelosi has been married to her husband Paul since 1962, and have raised five children. Gingrich, meanwhile, famously dumped his first wife while she was in the hospital for cancer treatment, refused to pay child support after the divorce, then later divorced his second wife Marianne after having an affair with one of his congressional aides.

Finally, Greenwald deals with the supposed conservative position of favoring limited government. Many conservatives said this during Bill Clinton’s presidency, but when their own side got into office, that principled stance vanished in a flash. It was replaced with enthusiastic support for all the radical claims of unlimited executive power advanced by the Bush administration - secret wiretapping without warrants, torture of detainees, arbitrary and indefinite detention at the executive’s discretion, the claimed power to violate laws passed by Congress, and more. John Ashcroft, for example, during the Clinton years strongly opposed government eavesdropping powers far less expansive than the ones he would actually go on to implement as Bush’s Attorney General.

The book closes with a discussion of John McCain. Other than his atypically honorable military service, Greenwald argues that McCain is the very image of the Republican party: his support for unchecked presidential power, his open advocacy of preemptive war as a tool of American imperialism, his support from a fawning and uncritical media, and last but not least, his personal life - in which he divorced his first wife, who raised their children while he was captive in Vietnam, to marry a young, wealthy heiress whose fortune he used to launch his political career.

I have only two complaints about this book. First is that, while Greenwald’s targets are fully deserving of the scathing condemnation he heaps on them, the language does get repetitive at times. There are places where I think it could have been edited down without in any way detracting from the point. If anything, the behavior of these Republican hypocrites is so self-evidently outrageous as to require little in the way of additional condemnation to drive the point home.

Secondly, and more seriously: This book has no footnotes! Although there are copious quotes from blogs, newspapers and TV shows, there’s nothing to indicate where any of this source material was drawn from. I don’t understand the reason for this omission. I have no reason to believe any of his quotes are inaccurate, but it would be better to verify that for myself. Their omission weakens an otherwise superb book, but does not undercut the righteous anger of Greenwald’s argument.

I have no sympathy. I can’t help it, but powerful people who behave this way strike me as the essence of…

Spitzer wired the call girl service the money. Granted, he set up a relatively elaborate blind to hide the transaction (it was his own money, not the state’s), primarily from his wife, but the fact is he established the monitoring protocols in the banking system in New York to catch exactly this kind of covert transfer. In other words, he made sure the system could catch him.

The first question that came to my mind was: why didn’t he use cash?

The second question—

Well, the second question is such a cliche it almost doesn’t bear asking, but: what he hell was he thinking?

Not thinking. Acting. Reacting. Making an assumption. I’ve already heard the term “self destructive” applied, and it would indeed seem the case. He was instrumental in breaking up a prominent prostitution ring as a prosecutor, he’d gone on record about the destructiveness of prostitution to families and to society, he had made a Big Deal about ethics in all his campaigns.

For the record, while I certainly agree that prostitution can be destructive, I do not agree that it is necessarily so. Like other things, it depends on context, and in the context of a society that criminalizes it, thereby making sex workers vulnerable to all sorts of criminal control elements, yes it is very destructive. But not in and of itself as an idea. There have been times and places where it was not so, and even in this country (Nevada) we can see instances where it is the avenue to financial independence for women and men (yes, men—we forget in the salaciousness of scandal that there are male prostitutes, both straight and gay, that women from time to time have been known to pay for sex they can’t get “at home”). Like any other industry, there are levels, and like any otehr industry in history where social controls did not exist, there are abuses. Keeping it illegal means normative protections and access to all the safeguards that, say, construction workers take for granted do not and cannot apply.

However. In Spitzer’s case he created his own disaster by loudly proclaiming his support for keeping prostitution illegal and then acting on that stance. Add to that the banking practices for which he was also responsible, and I find I have no sympathy for him. He acted foolishly.

Clinton did not run on an extreme family values platform. It was there, he gave it lip service, but it was never a centerpiece of any of his campaigns. One may question his judgment in the case of Monica, but the lying to Congress was far worse than his little breech of conduct in an anteroom of the Oval Office.

People at that level should know better. To be crude, they have staff who can handle that sort of thing. (Let’s be honest—even CEOs, presidents of corporations, and so forth hire “handlers” who do everything from scheduling high powered meetings to getting the cleaning done. Arranging trysts—and making sure they stay off the radar– would simply be one of their functions, and a governor, much less a president, should have two or three people like this.)

As to why he did it…do we really need to ask that? Come on. Sex and its convolutions is one of those areas wherein we turn a blind eye as if a part of our brain had been excised and we can’t bear to think about it.

What follows is a teensy-bit R rated. Nothing graphic, but the ideas might shock.

You’re married. You have 90% of a good relationship with your spouse. But you like this one thing in bed, really like it, the way wine connosieurs like a rare Bordeaux—and for whatever reason your spouse just won’t do it. The question is, do you just shut that desire off and go to your grave never having it? Or do you step outside to have your Bordeaux?

We all have choices, sure, but the nature of that one seems draconian. You might say to the connosieur “You’ve become an alcoholic, you may not drink at all,” and that would be valid. But to say “I don’t like Bordeaux, at least not that vintage, so you can’t have it either as long as you’re with me…” That’s not the same.

How one chooses to handle this problem is also another matter. I’m all for open discussion. Sneaking around behind your spouse’s back is a major Do Not Do for me. But one ought to be able to talk about this. (Personally, I have always been of the opinion that the Clinton’s have an arrangement like this, going all the way back to Bill’s days as governor of Arkansas. I think what incensed Hilary was that Bill picked that partner under those conditions, and then lied about it. After all, he had handlers…)

But my lack of sympathy for Spitzer has nothing to do with the sex. It is the two-faced way he has conducted his public policy life. Obviously, he thought the rules he advocated for everyone else ought not to apply to him.

Or, more perversely and I think not at all uncommon, he wanted to rid the landscape of any and all opportunity in order to keep temptation away from himself—that he knew on some level that he couldn’t say no, so the only way to protect his integrity would be to banish the object of his desire.

But that meant banishing it for everyone else as well. So to serve the interests of his own inability to manage an appetite, everyone had to pay the price.

Just as they kind of are now.

He rendered himself ineffective as a governor in this. Because of the illegal nature of prostitution, because of that he opened himself up to blackmail. The only way out of that trap would be to declare that he didn’t care and that he believed prostitution ought not be a crime in any event.

But he’d already closed that avenue of argument.

No sympathy at all.

Idiot.

I stumbled onto this excellent column by Damian Thompson about the modern proliferation of pseudo-information. That is, the way various formerly obscure conspiracy cults (UFO’s, moon landing hoaxers, second-shooters, 9/11 Truthers, Flat Earthers, Young Earthers, Inflating Earthers, etc) manage to disseminate their beliefs convincingly to wide and gullible audiences.

Before Gutenberg, only reliable, church-approved texts could be widely read in western culture. Then a new technology came along, and suddenly heretics like Martin Luther or Galileo could publish widely before the church could disappear them and their ideas. It took a few generations to settle down to the publishing and  editorial ethic that made it clear which information was reliable and accepted, and which was fringe. It helped that there was still some economic hurdle to wide publication, and publishers needed to maintain their reputations. This lasted until almost the end of the 20^th century.

Now, we have the web. Any misinformed but layout-talented individual can produce publications (pages) that look as wise, vetted, and reliable as Britannica. But without the necessity of prissy little details like fact checking or actual expertise in the subjects being purveyed. Must it be another couple of generations before the average browser can tell fact from fancy?

(more…)

Listening to a talk show at work yesterday, I heard some fall-out from the recent suicide of the young girl who had been “duped” on MySpace.  When I first learned of this tragedy, I ran through a series of thoughts about the dangers posed by the interfaces we use these days, which put us often too early and unprepared into contact with things in another era we would simply have had no opportunity to encounter.  This girl was a casualty of the wavefront of experience that comes now in new forms and through media that never before existed.  

I never once thought it was her fault.

How could you?  She’d been deceived.  Inexperienced, unwitting, she invested a bit too much, and it put her over the edge to discover that what she thought was “real” was in fact a deception.

History is full of examples of people committing suicide over things with only marginal reality.  Especially among adolescents.  We’ve learned in the last decade a great deal more about brain development than ever before, and one of those things is that adolescence is the time of some of the most intricate and fragile growth–physically–within the brain.  The hormone storm that is unleashed at the onset of puberty, the growth spurts visible in every other part of the body, the physiological changes of emergent sexuality and secondary sexual characteristics, all have their equivalent in cognitive development.  It makes perfect sense after the fact, but for a long, long time we blithely assumed that adolescents were more or less just like adults.  Instead we find that, because of the rapid and complex changes they are going through, teen-agers who appear out-of-control, impulsive, overly-sensitive, clueless, clumsy–in short, borderline insane–really are all those things and it is the responsibility of the adults around them to set guidelines and provide aid to get them through this period to the other side and (hopefully) “normality” and sanity.  (When this fails, we have all manner of screwed up adult.)

Which is why holding a teenager responsible for not behaving like an adult is absurd on its face.

And consequences of this journey can run the gamut from perpetual clumsiness to neuroses to schizophrenia to manic-depression to suicide.

It is one of the challenges of our new awareness of these things to take actions to mitigate the worst effects and to do what we can to ensure a healthy mind in the emergent adult.

Something like this tragic suicide occurs, though, and when we listen to what comes after we discover how unlikely that is for some people.  Many people emailed this talk show to express their opinion that the dead girl “got what was coming to her.”  It was somehow her fault.

When we tease through this senseless reaction, we come to the bottom line opinion that what she was doing on MySpace was something she shouldn’t have been doing, something that is to some people Bad.  In fact immoral.  Evil.  That she reaped the rewards of an inappropriate indulgence.

This is pathetic.  But rather than condemn it outright, maybe we ought to take a look at this and see where it comes from.  This echoes similar responses to other events, like rape.  “She shouldn’t have been out that late, she shouldn’t have been with Those People, she shouldn’t have been dressed Like That.”  We’ve heard all this.  After enough of it, you’d think the poor rapist had absolutely no choice but to attack That Female.  It was all her fault, she brought it on herself.

Blaming the victim.

This happens to men, too, but in less obvious ways.  (more…)

Richard Dawkins is famous for his criticisms of organized religion. 

In this new two-part video (see here and here), he moves on to examine spiritualists, faith healers, dowsers, homeopaths, astrologers and others who shun evidence in order to practice their unsubstantiated trades.

Much of this video is straightforward and succinctly edited. Dawkins restrains himself in his many conversations that appear in the video.  He lets the quacks speak their own words and he allows them to put their best foot forward.   Not that he doesn’t sometimes get in his digs, for instance with Deepak Chopra, who exhibits absolutely no understanding of quantum physics despite making millions on books in which he allegedly invokes principles of quantum physics.

The general themes are well stated in the video.  We are disparaging real science and medicine yet giving unsubstantiated alternative medicine a free ride.  Why?  Because we are a society that is, more than ever, willing to value private feelings over evidence.  Unfortunately, this makes us vulnerable to those who obscure the truth (e.g., charlatans like Chopra).

There’s this odd thing about alternative therapies:  the more we look at them, the weaker they look.  At least this is true for those who aren’t striving to believe in them.  Why do we do this?  Dawkins suggests that it is perhaps an evolutionary adaptation.  We have evolved to see patterns even when they don’t exist.  To be that other kind of animal, one that tends not to see patterns, would be too dangerous.  That might actually be a predator behind that bush!  For many of us, this over-tendency to see patterns has apparently generalized into a form of naiveté when it comes to alternative therapies. 

To see Dawkins’ encounter with Chopra, go to Part II, about 19:00.  To see the section on homeopathic medicine, see Part II at 23:00.  

In the meantime, spiritualist book titles outnumber real science books 3-to-1.   And one-fourth of the public believes in astrology, which serves as a sort of poster-boy for all of these shoddy disciplines:  What makes them “work” is that they allow us to keep thinking that humans are the true center of the universe.  All of the stars revolve around us.  Therapies work because we want them to work.  Ergo, no need for evidence.  Just keep believing . . . 

I know that numerous chiropractors swear by homeopathy. I even know of a couple MD’s who push homeopathic “remedies.”  It makes me shake my head because A) homeopathic theory (e.g., “the law of infinitesimals” and “the law of similars”) makes no sense and 2) homeopathic remedies and double-blind studies don’t mix.

Homeopathy is a painfully well-known placebo that millions of well-educated people just can’t bear to give up.  They know that it can’t really work according to the theory of its promoters, but they just can’t part from that juicy hit of placebo.

I recently ran across a science website with good energy, lots of engaging stories and commentors chomping at the bit.  It’s called Bad Science.   The post that most recently caught my interest is on homeopathy, more specifically a highly suspicious article in the “British Journal of Homeopathy” that claims that water “has a memory.”  Check out the comments for a rousing tour of the many failings of homeopathy.   One fellow apologizes for peeing in the ocean when he was young, because he didn’t realize the effect that it was going to have on everyone in the future.

For more information on the bad science of homeopathy, including a stab at one of my favorite psuedo scientists, Deepak Chopra, consider this article from the Skeptical Inquirer.  Here’s an excerpt:

Quite apart from the matter of how the water/alcohol mixture remembers, there are obvious questions that cry out to be asked: 1) Why does the water/alcohol mixture remember the healing powers of an active substance, but forget the side effects? 2) What happens when the drop of solution evaporates, as it must, from the lactose tablet? Is the memory transferred to the lactose? 3) Does the water remember other substances as well? Depending on its history, the water might have been in contact with a staggering number of different substances.

Homeopathy is only one of many forms of medical quackery being hawked to a scientifically naive public by researchers and public spokespeople who refuse to allow facts get in the way of their favorite version of snake oil:

The public is spending billions of dollars annually on sugar pills to cure their sniffles, hand waving to speed recovery from operations, and good thoughts to ward off illness, all with assurances that it’s based on science. Society has been set up for this fleecing in part by the media’s sensationalized coverage of modern science. Popular discussions of relativity, quantum mechanics, and chaos often leave people with the impression that common sense cannot be relied on — anything is possible. Scientists themselves often feed the public’s appetite for the “weirdness” of modern science in an effort to stimulate interest — or simply because scientists, too, can be beguiled by the mysterious.

I wish there were more of a placebo effect associated with the reading of science done carefully.  Maybe then we wouldn’t waste so much money and energy on all of those other placebo-effect inducers, including homeopathy.